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Hiring of Antiabortion Adviser is 'Latest Fiasco' at N.C. Health Dept., Editorial States

Hiring of Antiabortion Adviser is 'Latest Fiasco' at N.C. Health Dept., Editorial States

September 20, 2013 — The hiring of a "deeply conservative" adviser to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is the "latest fiasco" in a string of controversial personnel decisions by Gov. Pat McCrory (R) and DHHS Secretary Aldona Wos, a Raleigh News & Observer editorial states.

It seemed McCrory and Wos "had been sufficiently embarrassed to stop hiring unqualified DHHS senior advisers at high salaries," but "they've done it again" by appointing Margaret "Mardy" Peal "to fill a newly created $95,000 senior planner position" with DHHS, the editorial continues.

Other than "a stint as a lecturer at East Carolina University's medical school that ended more than a decade ago," Peal has "scant qualifications" for the position, according to the editorial.

Peal's conservatism and contributions to McCrory's campaign are the "credentials that appear to matter the most" to McCrory and Wos, the editorial argues. It notes that she "helped found the Eastern North Carolina Tea Party and is a board member of the Carolina Pregnancy Center, an anti-abortion ministry."

The editorial concludes that even though Wos declined to comment on the decision, "her disdain for the opinion of the public she is supposed to serve speaks loudly enough" (Raleigh News & Observer, 9/18).

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